"Tell me," he said. "What happened when you arrived in the North?"
"The men were all dispersed and could not be brought together again," I answered. "When I saw that there would be no fighting there, I tried to come back here. I came by road," I added.
"Did you walk the whole way?" he asked.
"Only from Dundalk," I said. "And when I arrived the fighting was over. I had no chance—I did nothing."
"Nothing," said my father as he reached up his arms and drew me down to his breast. "I think my little woman did as much as any of us."
"There was one young boy, Lillie," he said, turning to my mother, "who was carrying the top of my stretcher when we were leaving the burning Post Office. The street was being swept continually with bullets from machine guns. This young lad was at the head of the stretcher, and if a bullet came near me, he would move his body in such a way that he might receive the bullet instead of me. He was so young looking, although big, that I asked him his age. 'I'm just fourteen, sir,' he answered."
EAMONN CEANNT